1. Technical Field
One or more embodiments relate generally to systems and methods for document tracking. More specifically, one or more embodiments relate to systems and methods of presenting document modifications using a navigable timeline.
2. Background and Relevant Art
Different types of documents (e.g., text documents, web pages, designs, slideshows, audio, video) can undergo many revisions before final approval. Various applications include functionality for tracking changes made to document. Document tracking can allow one or more reviewers to provide feedback on content that should be included in a document.
Some conventional document tracking systems annotate changes using different colors or other visual cues to mark the changes. For example, some systems mark changes by a first user in a first color, and mark changes by a second user in a second color. While the colors can indicate the different users contributing to the document, the colors may not indicate a sequence of modifications, making it difficult to determine which changes were most recently made.
Reviewers often pass a document back and forth making multiple changes to the document. Because changes can overlap, distinguishing the changes can become confusing and difficult. Conventional document tracking systems often indicate a reviewer and a time at which the changes were made to allow other reviewers to determine who made a particular change and when the change was made. Although displaying the time at which changes are made can provide reviewers with useful information for determining a flow of changes in the document, merely displaying the time in connection with the changes may not provide an easily readable format for determining the flow of changes.
Additionally, conventional document tracking applications typically allow users to approve or reject changes within a document. In particular, a reviewer can approve or reject changes made by the same or a different reviewer in a previous version of the document. When a change is rejected or approved, the markup for the change may be removed from the document leaving no indication that the change was ever made. By removing the markups from the document, reviewers may have no way to determine when, or if, certain changes were made. Indeed, in many cases a user many need to review previous versions of the document to determine all changes to the document. Reviewing various versions of a document can be time consuming and difficult.
In addition, to ensure that the most recent changes are included, collaborative documents using traditional tracking methods with more than one reviewer may require reviewers to keep track of which version of the document is most recent. Reviewers may use different naming conventions, making it difficult for other users to determine which version is the most recent. Furthermore, reviewers may not always share every version of the document with every other reviewer, potentially resulting in conflicting versions of the document.
These and other disadvantages may exist with respect to conventional document tracking applications.